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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25207837">as the light renews each</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss'>gloss</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Prequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Extra Treat, F/M, Loyalty, Padmé Amidala Lives, Wingfic, either romantic or platonic relationship, it's up to you, knight &amp; lady</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:53:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25207837</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <cite>In another world, another kind of story, Obi-Wan would have gone down on one knee and pledged himself to her.</cite>
  </p>
</blockquote>Obi-Wan and Padmé after RotS. Everyone has wings.<p>(Notes toward a wing AU, perhaps.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Wingfic Exchange June 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>as the light renews each</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts">Shadaras</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>happy birthday, Shadaras! thank you so much for organizing this exchange</p><p>title from Delmore Schwartz, "<a href="browse">Why Do You Write an Endless History?</a>":</p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <cite>Thus, as the light renews each incident,</cite>
    <br/>
    <cite>My friends are free of guilt or I am free</cite>
    <br/>
    <cite>Of self-accused responsibility.</cite>
  </p>
</blockquote>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time they met, Padmé was obscured in the flock of handmaidens. All of them identical, downcast eyes and demure gold wings folded down against their backs, as they formed a backdrop to the false queen. She was striking, of course, as she was intended to be, her jet-black wings spread in a subtle, but unmistakable, display of power. They may have been captives, the presentation suggested, but they were not cowed. </p><p>Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan dispatched the droid guards and hustled the group to safety. The queen drew herself up, looking for all the world like a tiny, baleful predator; the handmaidens gathered around her, their own wings nudging upward and filling out. At the sight of the decoy and her entourage, Obi-Wan had drawn a little behind his master. </p><p>In later years, Padmé never let him forget his reaction.</p><p>"Like a scared, shy little child," she'd say, laughing warmly and squeezing his hand. "Hardly the gallant Jedi knight you'd become." </p><p>"I was not scared!" he'd protest. "Simply dazzled."</p><p>She'd roll her eyes at that, smile indulgently, and shake her head just fractionally enough to let him know that such flattery was unnecessary.</p><p>He was not, however, lying.</p><p>Before his master's death, he had met few other people as impressive as Amidala. Satine Kryze's wings were composed of shining silver blades, as impossibly sharp and lethal as they were grandly beautiful. He treasured the long scar crossing his palm, gained when he'd grazed one of her wings in battle. She was a weapon turned to peace and he reminded himself of that — of the hope for change, the trust in the light — every time he touched the scar.</p><p>Qui-Gon's death changed everything. Obi-Wan's padawan wings dropped their pale feathers and grew, over the course of a tenday, half again as wide. The plumage was now the creamy-white of his robes, matching the shade of dawn light on Coruscant, and it was thick and full. At first, his shoulders and breast ached with the transformation. Grief and change wove together in pain. </p><p>The first time he flew with Anakin, when they'd returned to the temple, however, joy overtook him. The boy sped past him, turning loops and somersaults in the air, exulting in his own wings, which grew bigger and stronger by, it seemed, the hour. His enthusiasm was infectious.</p><p>Breathing hard, Obi-Wan alit on the temple's tallest eyrie. He listened to the wind play through his feathers, joined by Anakin's shrieks of pleasure, before folding his wings back and down.</p><p>He did not see Padmé for nearly ten years after that, and when he did, she was more grand than ever. She wore her responsibilities far more comfortably now and somehow her beauty had increased correspondingly. No longer a charming prodigy, she was now a stateswoman, as elegant as she was brilliant. Her wings refracted different lights: sometimes they spread and fluttered coquettishly, while at other times, they beat the stale air of the senate with furious grace.</p><p>In another world, another kind of story, Obi-Wan would have gone down on one knee and pledged himself to her. The urge to do so was so strong that even here, in this world, it coursed through him still, nearly mastered him.</p><p>She was not a woman to be wooed, but to serve and follow.</p><p>Anakin, obviously, would have disagreed, had they ever spoken of the matter.</p><p>In those brief, anxious years of war and shadow, Padmé decorated her wings with jewels and chains, glittering hoops and delicately-forged rings. She was never caught unprepared or underdressed, a quality that Obi-Wan admired without ever quite articulating it, even to himself. She was ever-ready, he though, or <i>unflappable</i>. Never a hair nor barbule out of place.</p><p>She is now just as beautiful as she ever was, but there is no more decoration. Everything about their life out here is muted, quiet, dulled and hidden, as it must be. Her wings match the sand and only occasionally catch and diffract the blue of the sky. Most often, she echoes the shades of the twins' fluffy down. They toddle about, fat feet sinking in the sand, tiny wings the shape of dumplings lifting and swishing. They won't fly for years yet, but they don't know that. Their determination to do so, the fierce stubbornness on their scowling faces, reminds Obi-Wan of both their parents.</p><p>"Here," he says when he returns from the monthly market run to Mos Eisley. She's sitting under the hut's overhang, savoring the shade, while Luke chases Leia, squealing. Obi-Wan hands Padmé a burnished ring, not smooth but faceted many times over, that is the color of Naboo rivers in the shadows. Green and calm, full of life. "For you."</p><p>"You shouldn't have —"</p><p>Their finances are precarious and painfully tight. He traded three blaste bolts for the ring and he'd do it again.</p><p>Padmé must see something of his resolve, because she stops and smiles at him and shifts to make room for him on the bench. "Thank you."</p><p>"You," he says, gathering his robes and tucking down his wings as he sits, "are welcome. May I?" </p><p>"Yes."</p><p>She twists slightly at the waist and he bends to the task of preening her, aligning each feather with its peers. He uses mouth and fingers, and loses himself in the simplicity of the act. There's no room here for misunderstanding or betrayal; a feather is first dusty, then clean. </p><p>When he finishes and attaches the ring to the ligament just below her left wing's middle joint, he is as close to content and calm as he expects he'll ever be. Luke sleeps in Padmé's lap, mouth open and fist stuffed inside, while his sister plays in the sand before them, muttering darkly at a doll.</p><p>Obi-Wan fingercombs his beard and watches the two stars dip closer to the horizon.</p>
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